Central paramilitary forces involved in ‘Operation Lalgarh’ are not happy with the slow pace of progress and are wondering if the state government really wants to get rid of the Maoists.

Central paramilitary forces involved in ‘Operation Lalgarh’ are not happy with the slow pace of progress and are wondering if the state government really wants to get rid of the Maoists.

“We cannot understand the attitude of the government. We think it is just eyewash posing that the state is sincerely trying to take on the Maoists,” the officer in-charge of a BSF company trying to move to Kantapahari — the Maoist heartland in Lalgarh — from Sarenga in Bankura district, told HT.

“Otherwise, we would not have to sit at the same place idly for 48 hours even after sanitizing an 8-km stretch en route to Lalgarh.”

The BSF assistant commandant said: “Since we have been sitting idle for two days, the entire process of sanitization is back to square one. We have virtually allowed the extremists to plant fresh IEDs... We have to listen to state police order and the state government directs the state police. Does the state really want to get rid of the Maoists?”